SImeon was looking over his mail, grumbling and fussing. He pushed a pile of letters toward John when he returned from luncheon. “They’re coming in—thick and fast,” he said.
“What are they?”
“Damages.” He was scowling absently at the sheet in his hand. “Mail was full of it this morning. Here’s another.” He tossed it to the boy.
John gathered them up, looking at them thoughtfully.
“Take ’em to McKinnon,” said Simeon. “He ’ll tend to ’em for us.”
“Shall I read them first?”
Simeon snorted a little. “Read ’em?—Yes, read ’em, if you want to. You won’t find them very entertaining.Idid n’t.”
The boy was turning them over slowly.
“I ’ll pay ’em—every just claim,” said the old man. His shoulders were hunched a little forward, as if he were talking to himself. “I ’ll pay the just ones—every last cent. But the fakes can look out—that’s all!” His jaw set itself firmly.
The boy had taken them to his desk and was going through them, making notes from them slowly. The heavy look in his face held a kind of pain. He was seeing it again—the wreck—the flare of fire; there were groans about him and shrill calls—hysterical women—and there had been a child.... He glanced across at Simeon.
The old man’s face, bent to his work, was gray and haggard. He looked up, meeting the boy’s eye.
“It ’s a terrible thing!” he said as if answering the look. “I can’t get it out of my mind.” His hand shook a little reaching for the paper. “I’d give the year’s profits—” he said slowly.
“Have to,” said the boy quietly.
The shrewd business look flashed back to the man’s face. “You can’t tell,” he said brusquely. “We shall settle ’em out of court—all we can.”
“Won’t it cost more?”
“A little, maybe. Some we ’ll pay a little more, perhaps, than the court would allow. But it ’s cheaper—in the end. The public won’t get scared. It’s bad having things gone over and raked up for folks to read. Let ’em sleep. We ’re ready and willing to pay costs—Keep the thing quiet. It’s only the fakes that bother—” He gave a little sigh.
The boy was staring at the letter in his hand. He put it down and crossed to Simeon’s desk, taking oat the handful of notes he had made the night of the wreck. He ran them through his fingers and replaced them, smiling a little. “What’s tha?” asked Simeon.
“I wanted to see if I made a note. I don’t think I did, but I can remember.” He went over and picked up the letter again. “It ’s this man Spaulding.”
A light shot to Simeon’s face.
“I think I saw him there.”
“You did!” The light had gone out suddenly. “Fight it—You testify in court.”
The boy was looking down at the letter thoughtfully. “It ’s a good thing I asked,” he said.
“Asked what?”
“His name,” said the hoy. “I don’t know why I did it. One of the brakemen told me. He limps a little, does n’t he?”
“He ’s the man,” said Simeon promptly. “Rascal! Known him thirty years. He could n’t tell the straight truth if he tried—no more ’n he can walk straight.” His mouth shut grimly. “He won’t get a cent out ofthisroad—not whileIrun it!”
“I don’t think he will,” said the boy quietly. “He was there—at the wreck. I saw him. But he came in a buggy.”
“Buggy?” Simeon sat up.
The boy nodded. “And he went away in it.-It was while I was looking after the freight—along toward the end. I had sealed the cars that were n’t broken up and I was trying to tally odds and ends—Things were scattered, you know?”
The man’s eyes assented gloomily.
“I was down in that gully to the left, looking after things, and I came on the horse and buggy tied there—a little way in from the road.”
Simeon was smiling now, a look of exultation in his eyes. “You saw him?”
“He came down and got in while I was there—”
“See you?”
“It was a little off in the trees where I was; but I saw him quite plainly. It was getting light then—four o’clock, at least.”
Simeon chuckled. He reached out a hand. “Let’s have his claim—Twenty thousand, is it?” He looked at it. “Ten cents would buy him—body and soul!” he said scornfully. “Just like him—to hear of it and drive across country—five miles—to get evidence!” He looked at John shrewdly. “Perjury’s a good thing—put him where he belongs—where he ’ll stay put, too. He won’t go driving across country, making up claims for damages for quite a spell, likely, if he pushes this one.” He tapped the paper in his hand. “Twenty thousand he wants, does he? Let him get it—work for it—making shoes!” He replaced the letter in his desk.
“We ’ll keep that,” he said. “We won’t trouble McKinnon with it—not just yet.”
He returned to his work, a look of satisfaction in his face, and went through the remaining letters, laying them one side, making a note for reference. “That’s all!” He placed the last one on its pile and gathered up the bunch. “There ’s one thing I ’ve noticed,” he said drily, “folks that get to handing in their claims inside of twenty-four hours ain’t very badly damaged.”
The boy looked up absently. “Did you mean this, sir?” He had picked up a letter from the pile and he brought it across, laying it on Simeon’s desk. Across one corner of it a note was scrawled in Simeon’s small, crabbed hand.
He looked at it with a snort. “Why should n’t I?” he demanded.
John surveyed it thoughtfully. “I did n’t know but you would like to read it again.” Simeon took it in his hand. “I’ve read it a number of times already,” he said. “You see what it means, don’t you?” He was looking over the top of his glasses at the boy’s face.
The boy nodded. “They mean that you will promise to hold to the rates of the last two years.”
“They don’t say so—”
“Itmeansthat,” said the boy.
Simeon nodded. “That’s what I make out. Well—I don’t do it—I don’t promise the C., B. and L. anything. You understand?—notanything!” He was glaring at the boy.
“Yes, sir.” He held out a hand. “I only wanted to make sure.”
Simeon handed him the letter. “The C., B. and L. is a big road,” he said. “They ’ve got smart men, but they can’t run the ’R. and Q.’—not yet.” He pointed to the words scrawled in the corner. “You write what I’ve marked there. Don’t let it go downstairs.”
The boy went back to his desk.
Simeon wrote with level brows, scowling at the paper before him. By-and-by he looked up. The boy, bending over his desk, had a troubled look. The president of the road watched him a few minutes in silence. He pushed back his papers. “Oh, John—?”
The boy looked up. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t you worry about that. It gives them a chance to cut. But they’ve been doing it all along on the side. I have pretty clear proof they carried Thornton & Birdwell last year for six—five and three-quarters, part of the time, and a rebate besides.”
“But this means open fight,” said the boy. He was looking down at the note.
“And it ’s what I want,” said Simeon quickly. “They’ve had their spies on me long enough. Let ’em come out and fight for what they get.”
The boy was still looking at the paper, a question in his eyes. “You don’t think they will connect with the Bridgewater terminus?” he said.
Simeon’s eyes were on him shrewdly. “I think they ’lltryto.”
“And if they—do—?”
“If they do, they ’ll find they can’t—not this year, nor next.”
The boy looked up quickly.
Simeon nodded. “You remember telling me last year that the Bardwell farm would block their road and that you thought it could be got?”
“I knew they needed money,” said John. “They took a fair price,” said the old man drily.
The boy’s face lighted slowly—“They can’t put through their road!”
“Not without a lot of trouble. They can compel us to sell—maybe. But it will take time—and it will take a lot of money,” he said grimly.
The boy’s face answered the look in his. “You going to fight ’em?”
The man nodded slowly. “I ’m going to fight ’em.” He touched the letter with his hand. “Do you know what that rate would mean for the road?”
“It has paid pretty well for two years,” said the boy thoughtfully.
“And it would pay again,” said the man. He looked at the boy. “It would pay three years—perhaps four—for the road. But it would n’t pay the country.”
The boy looked at him, a little puzzled light in his face.
Simeon surveyed him a minute. Then he turned away, as if half ashamed. “What did you find out from McElwain about those boilers?”
The boy glanced at the clock. “He ’s to have the statement at five. I ’ll get it now.” When he had gone from the room, the man sat looking thoughtfully at his desk. He could not understand the feeling that had suddenly gripped him—a kind of shame—holding him back from revealing to the boy his purpose. He had faced the world with selfishness, but when virtue tried to look out from his eyes, they had faltered and turned away.
John went slowly down the stairs, pondering the quick words that had been spoken. What did it mean? He had never known the President of the “R. and Q.” to give a thought for any one or anything—except the road. He must be going to pieces—talking about the good of the country. ... The boy had always felt, in a vague way, the region hating Simeon—his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him—and John had been his henchman, serving him faithfully; his quarrels had been John’s quarrels and his battles John’s battles. Again and again the boy’s heavier hand had steadied his; they had fought to win and they had given no quarter. But now.... The boy’s brow puckered in a little puzzled frown.... Now, Simeon was turning his back on profit.... He was bringing on himself difficulties and annoyance—What was up? He shook his head and plunged into the yard.
When he came out, he had forgotten his questioning. He held McElwain’s statement.—The C., B. and L. account was a clear overcharge—a mistake, perhaps; but it seemed to the boy there had been too many mistakes of that kind in his absence; and things were coming to the president of the road that should never have troubled him. No wonder he looked harassed and driven. But that should be changed now. He should have the quiet he needed for his work. The boy’s heart glowed and he whistled lightly as he sprang up the stairs.
He laid the statement before the president.
The president grunted a little—puffs of smouldering wrath. He searched out the C., B. and L. statement, pinning them together with quick stab.
The boy was gathering up the letters for the mail, licking each stamp and affixing it with slow precision in its corner, right side up. It would have troubled John’s orderly soul had an ex-president gone out of the office, standing on his head. In the midst of the work he stopped, his eye held by an address on the envelope before him. He opened his mouth and glanced at Simeon, hesitating. He drew a stamp across the convenient tongue and placed it on the envelope, crowding it down with firm palm, his eye still on the address. He looked again at the president and laid the letter one side, going on with his stamps. When he had finished, he bundled them together, the letter that he had laid aside on top.
Simeon was making ready to go, fussing a little at his desk.
“I ’ll take care of those,” said John. He came across. “Did you want this to go?” He was holding out the letter.
Simeon dropped an eye to it curtly. “What’s the matter with it? It’s plain, is n’t it—‘Hugh Tomlinson, Bridgewater’?” He turned again fretfully to the desk.
The boy hesitated. “I thought it might be his dismissal?” he said.
“It is.”
“They ’re very poor, sir.”
The man shot a look at him under keen brows. “That letter is not about their being poor,” he said.
John laid it again on the desk. He brought Simeon’s hat, brushing it a little and holding it out.
The man took it brusquely, crowding it on to his head, and moved toward the door. He passed the letter without a glance.
“Good night, sir,” said John.
“Good night.” It was a half growl, muffled by the closing door.
The boy finished his work in the room. He glanced about; it was all right now, except the grime on the windows—and there must be some sort of shade for them these hot days.... Awnings—? He went to the window and leaned out, looking for fastenings.... Yes, that would do. He would order them in the morning. His eye dropped to the street. It fell on the figure of the president on the opposite side walking slowly and bent like an old man. It almost seemed to the boy watching, that the figure shook a little, as with a kind of palsy. The boy’s eyes grew deep, following him out of sight.
Before he had turned away, he became conscious that another figure had emerged from a doorway somewhere and was standing looking after the feeble, retreating one. Then it turned and re-entered the building.
He closed the window, puzzling a little in his mind, half-wondering where he had seen the man before.... He gathered up the letters from the table, glancing at them absently.... Then it came to him—The new bookkeeper, Harrington. The president had told him—The one that had taken Carpenter’s place.
He went out, locking the door behind him. The letter on the top he still held a little apart from the others, dropping it into the box by itself, holding it back to the last, as if hoping somehow to defeat its end. When it fell with a little swish upon the others, he turned away hurriedly. He was thinking of Ellen’s face—Tomlinson’s wife—the morning of the wreck.
“He done it, Johnny,” she had said piteously, wiping the wetness from her gray cheek. “And they ’ll turn him off, but it’s hard on an old man—and there’s not a cent laid by—not since the bairns came. We’d a bit before that, but it went for the boy’s burying—” The boy was Eddie, killed on the road the year before, a brakeman—Tomlinson’s only son. John had known him well. They had been schoolmates. “It’s hard on the bairns,” she had said.... They had come to live with Tomlinson—a boy and a girl.
He was walking slowly now, not thinking, hardly conscious of himself, hut feeling the misery in the old woman’s voice. At the corner he paused a little, staring at the opposite wall. What had he forgotten to do.... The desks were locked and the door.... His fingers felt the key in his pocket.... And the copy was ready for Whitcomb in the morning.... And the windows? Yes, they were closed.... But he must go hack. He would remember when he got there what it was.... With a little sigh he had turned back. He walked more quickly now.... He would measure the windows for the awnings. Perhaps that was what he was trying to remember. He sprang up the stairs quickly and was on the upper floor almost before there was time for thought. His coming had been swift, and perhaps too silent for a man in the upper loft who looked up with startled glance at the sound of a foot on the stair. He moved quickly from the place he had been standing in and met the boy half way in the big room, his glance full of nonchalance.
John stared at him a little. Then his brow raised itself.
The man returned the look, smiling. “Jolly old place!” he said, moving his hand toward the loft, “lots of room.”
The boy looked at him slowly. “No one comes up here,” he said.
“Except the old man. I know,” said the other pleasantly, “but I wanted some files for the morning—early. Thought I ’d save time getting them now—Save bothering the old man, too.”
“You did n’t find them, did you?” He was looking into the man’s eyes.
They flickered a little. “Well, I have n’t had time.” He laughed, easily. “I only want a couple of dozen.” He moved away a few steps.
“You won’t find them here,” said John.
“They ’re over here,” said the man, looking back.
“I guess not.”
The man moved quickly to a box and raised the cover.
The hoy looked in with a startled glance. “Those belong on the third floor,” he said sharply.
“Very likely,” said the man. “I don’t know about that. I ’m new here.” He had taken out a handful of the files and closed the box. “I don’t run the business, you know. But I know where to find things when I want ’em.” He spoke almost as if the last words had escaped without volition. It was a challenge to the clear eyes looking into his.
“They will be moved down tomorrow,” said the boy. “They will be more convenient down there,” he added.
“That’s all right,” said the other smoothly. He had recovered his temper. “Glad to have seen you.” He went softly down the stairs, with little tripping steps that tapped.
The boy’s eyes followed him slowly. He went into the office and closed the door behind him. For a long minute he stood looking at Simeon’s desk. Then he went across to it. He sat down before it and tried the lid. It was locked securely, as he had left it. He did not open it, but sat motionless, gazing before him. Dusk settled in the room—shadows crept in from the comers. But the boy had not stirred.... At last he raised himself with a little sigh. He had come back none too soon. His slow, sensitive nature felt things that he could not have said. The president needed him—more than either of them had known! He opened the desk deliberately and took out a handful of papers, sorting out certain ones with mechanical fingers. Even in the dark he knew them; but he turned on the light for a minute to make sure; he selected certain ones and placed them together, slipping them into his pocket. Then he turned out the little looping bulbs and went out, and left the room to the darkness.
THE next morning a new lock was on the office door and the key lay on the president’s desk when he came in. He glanced at it sharply. “What’s that?”
“I ’ve had a new lock put on; the old one was never very good,” said the boy.
The man took up the key and slipped it on to his key-ring without comment. A hundred times a day the boy did things without consulting him. If he saw any special significance in this new caution, his face gave no sign and his hand, as it slipped the ring into his pocket, trembled no more than usual. But his glance, as it fell on the boy through the day, held a quiet content.
Just how wrong things had been going for the last few weeks only the president of the road knew. It seemed almost as if there were a concerted plan to harrow him—some hidden power, that chose maliciously his weakest spot, at the moment when he was most off his guard. Yet he could never lay his finger on a thing or a person that proved it. He only felt, helplessly enmeshed by circumstance—he, who had always driven others, chuckling at their discomfiture! But with the boy to help—Ah, what could he not do—with the boy! His face lost its driven look. The new awnings shaded the glare from the windows. It was almost comfortable in the little office.
As for the boy, he was watching over Simeon with new care. Not only did what he had seen the night before make him cautious, but Simeon’s whole attitude troubled him. There was something about the man—broken, hesitant—that had never been there before. He had always been nervous, crabbed, but not like this. It was as if the spring had snapped—or weakened helplessly under the long strain. One could not tell, at any moment, whether it would respond to the demands made on it. Now and then he recovered himself and spoke and acted like his old self. But again he would relapse into uncertainty, a kind of vague fretfulness and indecision, more trying than open collapse. It was when he spoke of the road and its future that he grew most like himself. ... Quietly the boy took it in—his change of purpose—and his heart moved to it in gentle understanding. Little by little, Simeon revealed himself—a word here, a word there—never by full explanation—watching all the time the thought reflected in the boy’s eyes, and strengthening his courage in the clear look as it grew and deepened.
The boy threw himself into the work, body and soul. It was good to be in the stir of things once more. He liked to feel the steady pound of the engine under him, as it drove to its work—to see the clear track and the shining country.... He drew his breath full and deep, and worked night and day, righting the things that had gone wrong, gathering details into his hands.
Simeon Tetlow could plan an edifice that in a night should overtop the world. But even while he planned, he let slip a myriad details—things that fluttered and fell and went wrong and threatened the structure at its proudest foment. The boy gathered them up one by one, little things of no account, things too minute for Simeon’s notice—and held them fast.
The office felt the change. The road felt it—vaguely. There was the same driving power in the little office, high up in the roof, but steadied and controlled—less smoke and wrath and ringing of bells in the orders that came down from the office and a freer, heavier swing to the big engine as it took the track.
It was absorbing work, and two weeks went by before the boy saw a chance to break away. There had been letters from his mother every day, full of detail—pictures of Caleb packing the dishes with clumsy fingers, or clearing out the cellar, happy and important, in spite of the parting from the squashes. John had smiled as he read the letters, but he had caught the note of courage beneath and sent it back to her full of cheer.... The moving would not be hard—with all that father had been doing. Three days would be enough for everything and he had their new home ready for them, a little house—seven rooms with a garden stretching to the side and back, for Caleb to dig in.
“I can raise a few things this year,” Caleb had said when he heard it—“Lettuce and parsley and reddishes, maybe. And next year we ’ll have arealgarden. I’m going to take up some roots of daffydils and some jonquils and a stalk of that flowering shrub by the walk.”
He was occupied with this new hope when John arrived—pottering about with hoe and trowel—and they left him to his garden, while inside the house John tied up furniture and packed boxes, with watchful eye upon his mother that she should not overtax her strength before the journey. She had been a little restless the first day of his homecoming, going from room to room with long pauses for rest—a kind of slow pilgrimage—touching the familiar things softly, her thin hands lingering on them as if she might not see them again in the new home.
The boy watched a little anxiously. But her face was still and her eyes smiling when they met his, and after the first day she sat with him while he packed, talking of their new home and his work, and when the carriage left the house, she did not look back—her eyes were on the boy’s face.
It had been arranged that they should travel in the baggage-car. Simeon had spoken gruffly of the special and John had refused it, and she herself had chosen the baggage-car. “It will interest me, I think,” she said. There was a free space about her steamer-chair and through the partly-open door that framed a great picture a fresh breeze blew in, stirring her hair and bringing a clear color to her cheeks. Her eyes were like stars, looking out on the fields, and she grew like a child with the miles. John’s heart lightened as he watched her. What a thing of courage she was! Sheer courage. Just a frail body to give it foothold on the earth. The boy could not have said it, but he felt it—through every dull fiber—the courage that he could never match, but that had been before every day of life.... He need not have feared the journey for her—She made holiday of it!
After a little he left her and went forward. He had seen a man sitting at the farther end of the car, bent forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his gaze on the floor of the car.
He did not look up as John paused beside him, and the boy seated himself on a box.
After a time he looked up. “You ’re taking her to the Port?” He nodded toward the steamer-chair.
“We ’re all going down.”
“I heerd it,” said the man. He relapsed into silence. The train thundered on with hoarse stops and fierce quickening of power as it left the stations behind.
The man lifted his head. “He ’s a hard man!” he said. He fixed his reddened eyes on the boy’s face. “I’ve served the road—man and boy—forty year.” He said the words slowly, as if they were important. They became a kind of chant in the roar of the train—“And now I’m turned off.”
John waited a minute. His slow mind did not find words to speak to the haggard face. “I’m going down to see him,” said the man. “The president!”.
He nodded slowly and solemnly. “They say he ’s a hard man. But he shall hear it to his face—what I ’ve got to say!”
“You ’re going to ask him for work?”
“I ’ve asked it—three times. I ’ll ask it four times,” said the man. “And after that I ’ll curse him.”
The boy made a quick motion.
The old face lifted itself, with a tragic look, toward the car. “Is there aught a man can do?” he demanded. “They ’ve shook the strength out of me for forty year on the road.... They ’ll not take it from me! ... They ’ve drove me up and down—cold and rain—wind that cut my in’ards—till I ’m fit for naught but the switch.... They ’ll not take it from me!” It was a solemn cry.
The boy listened to it, for a moment, as it died away. The train roared its echo mockingly. He reached out a hand and laid it on the rough knee. “Don’t go down today, Tomlinson,” he said slowly. “I want to see him first.”
The old man stared at him with grim eyes. “Ye think ye can help me with him?” he asked sharply.
“IknowI can. But you must wait. I have my mother to look after. I can’t be at the office—yet. Wait till I ’m there. You take the next train back and I ’ll write you.”
“I ’ll not go back,” said the old man slowly, “I ’ll not face Ellen without news—good or bad. But I ’ll stop off to my daughter’s—in Hudson. Ye can write me there and I ’ll come.”
“I ’ll write you before the week ’s up,” said John. “You may not need to come down.”
“I thank ye, Johnny,” said the old man. The train had halted at Hudson and he got stiffly to his feet.
“It ’s what Eddie al’ays said about you, you ’d help a man out—gi’e you time!” He chuckled feebly, with returning hope, and climbed down from the car.
His mother’s glance met him as he returned to her side.
He nodded. “He was going down to see the president. But I ’ve got him to wait.... They ought to do something for him,” he said.
“Is he strong enough to work?”
“He’s not strong—except in an emergency, maybe—but he ’s faithful. That ought to count.”
“Yes, that ought to count.” She said the words softly under her breath.
JOHN was not back at the office “within the week.” He forgot the office and Simeon Tetlow and Tomlinson. He had eyes only for a white face looking up to him from the pillow and his ear listened only for low moans that broke the darkness. The spirit of courage had driven the thin body a step beyond the line where the soul has its way, and the body had turned and struck back.
Tomlinson, waiting in his daughter’s home, wondered a little at the silence, but waited, on the whole, content. Since his talk with John a hope had sprung up in him that, somehow, the boy would do for him what he could never do for himself. He had started out for Bayport more because he wanted to look Simeon Tetlow in the face than because he hoped for justice at his hands. But since he had talked with the hoy, his purpose had changed imperceptibly and his shrewd Scotch sense of justice asserted itself. He would speak the president of the road fair. The man should have his chance. He should not be condemned unheard. So Tomlinson waited, his sullen mood passing gently into tolerance.
But his daughter, a buxom woman, many years Eddie’s senior, grew impatient at the delay. She prodded Tomlinson a little for his inaction.
“What is it like, that Johnny Bennett—a slip of a boy—can do for ye with Simeon Tetlow?” she had demanded scornfully when the week had gone by and no word had come.
“He has a way ye can trust, Jennie—the boy has,” the old man had replied.
“Best trust yourself,” said the woman.
“Go and stan’ up before Sim Tetlow. Tell him to his face what ye want. And if he won’t give it to ye—thencurse him!”
So the old man wavered forth, half driven to a task to which he felt himself unequal. But his reliance was on the boy. He would find him and ask what to do.
“John Bennett?” The assistant bookkeeper, hurrying back from luncheon a little late, paused in the doorway, looking at the tall, red-eyed Scotchman who put the anxious question.
“John Bennett?” He wrinkled his brow a little, as if trying to place so unimportant a person—“I think he works up above—top floor. Take the elevator.” He passed on, chuckling a little at the invasion of the sacred territory. “‘Nobody comes up here,’” he said mincingly, as he drew the ledger toward him and plunged into work, harrying to make ap lost time.
Tomlinson looked a little fearfully at the iron cage, plying up and down. He cast an eye about for the more friendly stairway. He was not afraid of any engine, however mighty and plunging, that held to solid earth, keeping its track with open sky; but these prisoned forces and office slaves, clacking back and forth in their narrow walls, and elevators knocking at a man’s stomach, were less to his mind. He climbed laboriously up the long stairs, flight after flight, his spent breath gasping at each turn. At the top floor he gazed around him, his mouth a little open.
“A queer place for the lad,” he said to himself, his faith in John oozing a little as he walked across and knocked at the door of the room.
There was a moment’s silence; then the scraping legs of a chair, and silence.
Tomlinson had raised his hand ready to rap again. The door receded before his knuckles....
It was the president of the road, himself, Simeon Tetlow—whom all men hated and feared—standing there grim and terrible.
Tomlinson’s nerveless hand rose to his hat.
“I’m wanting to ask you something, sir.”
The man surveyed him with a scowl. “Who told you to come up here?” he demanded.
“It were Johnny Bennett, sir.”
The scowling face changed subtly. It seemed to grow more human beneath its mask.
Tomlinson took heart. “It’s only a word I want with you, sir.”
“Come in.”
Tomlinson shut the door circumspectly and stood turning his hat in his fingers.
“Well?”
“It ’s the place, sir—I ’m Tomlinson,” he said.“Oh—you—are—Tomlinson—”
The old man shrank a little, as if each word had struck him lightly in the face. Then he raised his head. “I ’ve served the road forty year,” he said, repeating his lesson, “and I’ve never done harm. I’ve worked early and I’ve worked late for ye, and never a word of complaint.”
The president of the road stirred sharply. “The Bridgewater wreck—”
The old man raised his hand. “It’s that I wanted to speak about, Mr. Tetlow.” There was a simple dignity in the words. “I’d been on duty seventeen hour—and ten hour before that—with not a wink of sleep. They run us hard on the hours, sir.”
“The other men stand it—the young men.” The words had a kind of cutting emphasis.
The old man raised his red eyes. “They’ve not gi’ed their strength to the road, sir, as I have—” He threw out a hand. “The road’s had all o’ me.”
Simeon eyed him keenly, the bent look and worn shoulders. His glance traveled up and down the thin frame slowly.... Not an ounce of work left in him.
“We ’ve no place for incompetents,” he said, turning away.
Tomlinson made a step forward, as if he would touch him with his hands. Then he stood quiet. “There might be a boy’s place, sir—”
The man wheeled sharply, driven without and within—“I tell you we’ve nothing for you. You ’ve done your work. You ’ve had your pay. You ’re used up.” It was the biting truth and the old man shrank before it.
“I can’t spend any more time on you,” said the president of the road. He turned decisively to his desk.
For a moment Tomlinson stood with bent head. Then he raised his red-rimmed eyes, fixing them on the man before him. His right hand lifted itself significantly. “May the God in heaven curse ye, Simeon Tetlow, as ye have cursed me this day. May He shrivel ye, body and soul, in hell—” The words were shrill. “Curse ye—curse ye!”
He drew a step nearer, his eyes still on the other’s face.... Gradually a change seemed to come over him. The bent figure straightened itself. It towered above the president of the road, filling the little room. The chieftain of some mighty Highland clan might have stood thus, defying his enemy. His lifted right hand grew tense and flung itself, and a torrent of broad Scotch poured forth. Words of fire, heard in Tomlinson’s boyhood and forgotten long since, were on his tongue. The elemental passions were afire within him. Like the slow-burning peat of his native bogs, his soul, nourishing its spark through the years, had blazed forth—a scorching torrent. The words rolled on, a mighty flood, enveloping the man before him. Scathing tongues of flame darted at him and drew back, and leaped high—to fall in fiery, stinging showers on his head.
At the first words of the imprecation the president of the road had lifted his head with a little smile—almost of scorn—on his lips, as one might watch some domestic animal reverting to its ancestral rage. But as the broad Scotch rolled on—stem, implacable and sinister—the smile faded a little and the man seemed to shrivel where he stood, as if some fiery blast touched him. When he raised his head again, the look in his eyes was of cold steel.
He waited a minute after the voice had ceased, then he lifted his hand quietly. “You ’ve had your say, Tomlinson. Now I ’ll say mine—You leave this office and you leave the road. You ’ll never touch brake or throttle or switch on it again. You ’re not fit—do you understand!”
He moved his hand toward the door and Tomlinson went out, a tottering old man once more.
For a long minute the president of the road stood staring at the closed door. The hand that had pointed to it had not trembled; but now it began subtly, as if of its own will, to move. Slowly the vibration communicated itself to the whole frame till the man threw himself into a chair, broken from head to foot. He leaned toward his desk, gasping a little. “My God!” he said under his breath, “My God!” He lifted his hand and wiped the moisture from his forehead with the dazed look of one who has come through some mighty upheaval unharmed.
Another week went by before John was free to go back. The day before his return he received a letter, addressed in a huge, sprawling hand:
I seen him. I cursed him.
Hugh Tomlinson.
Simeon made no reference to the visit or the curse, and John waited, wondering a little whether it might be possible, even now, to undo the consequences of the old man’s folly.
That there was any connection between Simeon’s growing weakness and the old Scotchman’s visit did not occur to him. There were difficulties enough in the office to account for it without going outside. As the days went by and he watched the worn face, he grew more anxious. A look haunted the eyes—something almost crafty—they gazed at the simplest thing as if unseen terror lurked in it; and he started at any sudden noise as one pursued.... When John, leaning across the desk, pushed a book to the floor, he leaped to his feet, his hand upraised to strike, his lip drawn back from his teeth in quick rage.
That night John made a midnight journey, traveling all night and coming back at dawn. He had been to consult Dr. Blake, the great specialist, laying the case before him—withholding only the name of the man whose health was in question.
The physician had listened, his head a little bent, his eyes looking out as if seeing the man whom John described. “It’s the same story—I hear it every day,” he said. “I call it Ameri-canitis—It does n’t make much difference what you call it.... He must stop work—at once.”
“He won’t do it,” said John as promptly.
The physician looked at him keenly. “I suppose not—one of the symptoms. You have influence with him—?”
John shook his head slowly. “Not enough for that. I might get him to do other things, perhaps.”
The physician nodded.
“He would take medicine?”
John smiled at the picture.
“Perhaps.” He waited a little. “I ’m afraid he ’s losing his mind,” he said. “That’s really what I want to know—I don’t dare let him go on.”
The physician assented. “If I could see him ten minutes, I could tell, perhaps—more. But not in the dark, like this. You ask too much,” he said with a smile.
John gave a quick sigh. “He will never come to you,” he said.
The physician had drawn a paper toward him and was writing on it. “I can give certain general directions. If they don’t help, hemustcome.”
John waited while the pen scratched on. “These baths,” said the physician, “are good. They may help.”
John’s eyes grew dubious—a little wide with anxiety.
“These other things,” went on the physician, “are for your discretion. He ’s probably under-nourished. Raw eggs will give him what he needs—tax him least.”
“How many?” asked John.
“All you can get into him.”
The young man’s eyes grew larger—at the way before him....
“He does n’t half breathe, I suppose?”
“I—I don’t know,” said John.
“Watch him. Take him in hand. He must breathe deep—all the time, night and day. Here, I will show you.” He put his hand on the young man’s chest. “Go on—I ’ll tell you when to stop—” He held the hand in place a few minutes, then he withdrew it with a smile. “Tell him to breathe like that,” he said quietly. “He ’ll get well then.”
“Don’t everybody breathe that way?” asked the youth helplessly.
The physician laughed out. “If they did, they would n’t be nervous wrecks.” He handed him the list of instructions. “He must be spared any nervous worry, of course. That is the most important of all. Good-by. If he gets unmanageable, send him to me.”
“I wish I could,” said John with a little smile that was half a frown. He was not appalled at the details of nursing thrust upon him. He had cared for his mother too long and skilfully to be worried by these. But Simeon—yielding gracefully to being dieted—told what to eat and how to breathe and little things like that—!
During the home journey he devoted himself to planning ambushes for Simeon’s obstinacy; and when, after a vigorous bath, he arrived at the office, he was equipped with a dozen “strictly fresh” eggs in a paper bag; a small egg-beater in one pocket and a flask of brandy in the other. This last was a little addition of John’s own—prompted by wisdom, and a knowledge of Simeon. He put the eggs carefully on a high shelf. It would not do to rouse untimely prejudice against them by untoward accidents. The egg-beater and brandy he concealed skilfully behind a row of ledgers. When Simeon entered a little later, irritable and suspicious, there was no sign that the office was to be turned into a kind of fresh air hospital.
The windows were open and a little breeze came in. John, refreshed by his bath, was hard at work, the broad, phlegmatic back a kind of huge mountain of strength. The little man threw himself into his chair with a grunt. He would rest more looking at that back than he could in a bed all night, tossing and turning through the hours.
Schemes had haunted him—visions for the road—New tracks to be run—new regulations. Investments along the route, a little here and a little there, not for the corporation, but to build up the country—capital to help out feeble enterprises. And athwart the visions ran black shadows—disturbing dreams of the C., B. and L., always waiting, weapon in hand, to spring upon him.... If only they would fight fair! He had tossed restlessly, seeking a cool place for his tired head. There was no time to spend in fighting.—So much to be done—his whole life-work to build anew.... Then he had fallen again to staring at the vision as it flared across the night, the vision of light and wonder.... When morning came, he had slept perhaps an hour..
But here, in the cool office, he could rest. The boy came and went with quiet step, his hand everywhere, yet without hurry, and his thought running always ahead of Simeon’s, smoothing the way.
The president of the road had intended to rest, but before he knew it, he was hurrying feverishly to finish a letter for the ten o’clock mail. His head throbbed and his hand, as it dipped the pen in the ink, shook quick spatters across the paper. He swore under his breath, dabbing the blotter here and there.... There was a gentle shiver of egg shell, a little whirring sound that buzzed, and then, upon the air of the room, a subtle, pervasive odor. Simeon raised his head and sniffed. Then he looked around. The boy was at his elbow.
“You’d better take this, sir,” he said casually. He set it down beside him, picked up a pile of papers and returned to his own desk.
Simeon dropped an eye to the glass of yellow foam. He looked hastily away. He particularly and fervently hated an egg—and an egg that foamed—“Bah!” He wrote savagely, the gentle odor stealing up wooingly, appealingly to his nostrils. He moved restlessly in his chair, throwing back his head, as if to shake it off. Then his hand reached out slowly—shook a little—and closed upon it.
John, with his back to him, went on slowly sorting papers. When he looked around, the glass, with its little flecks of foam, stood empty and Simeon was writing fiercely. The boy took the glass to the faucet and washed it, humming a little, gentle tune to himself as the water ran. The first step in a long and difficult way had been taken.
But no one knew better than John that it was only a first step and that the road ahead was strewn with difficulties.... It was at the seventh egg that Simeon rebelled openly, and John was forced to retire upon six-thankful to have achieved as much as this, and thankful to have discovered the limit. “As many as you can get into him,” the physician had said. John had not known what this number might be, until the day of the explosion—when the seventh egg was proffered and rejected.
He had swept up the fragments of glass and repaired damages with grateful heart.... Six a day was the limit. But there ought to be a great deal of nourishment in six eggs.
That there was, Simeon’s conduct proved. He rose to a kind of new, fierce strength that exhausted itself each day.
“He ’s just eggs!” thought the youth, watching him gloomily. “He has n’t gained an inch. It all goes into work.” And he set himself anew to spare the nervous, driven frame.
There were times when he hoped, for a little, that a permanent gain had been made. But an emergency would arise and three days would be used up in one blaze of wrath.
The C., B. and L. was tireless in its attacks, goading him on, nagging him—now here, now there—till he shook his nervous fists, palpitating, in air.
“They’ve held back those machines on purpose,” he said, one morning, late in September.
“Those machines” were a consignment of harvesters, sidetracked somewhere along the C., B. and L. and not to be located. The “B. and Q.” had been telegraphing frantically for weeks—only to receive cool and regretful apologies. Farmers were besieging the road. A whole crop depended on the issue.
Simeon tossed the last telegram to John with a grunt. “We ’ll have to give it up,” he said grimly, “it’s too late. But they shall pay for it—if there is a law in the land, they shall make it good—every cent. Think of that crop—wasted for deviltry!” He groaned suddenly and the hand resting on the desk trembled heavily.
“You could n’t have helped it, sir,” said John. “They would have done it, anyway, and you’ve made them trouble enough.”
“I don’t know—I don’t know.” He turned his head restlessly, as if pursued. “I think any other man would have made ’em.”
The young man laughed out. “They ’re afraid of you, sir—for their life! You ’vemadethe ’R. and Q.’”
The man gulped a little. He glanced suspiciously at the door. “I’ve ruined it, I think,” he said slowly. “There ’s a curse on everything I touch!”
“Nonsense! Look atme!” The young man threw back his head, choosing the first words at hand to banish the look in Simeon’s face. It was this look—the shadow haunting the eyes, that troubled him. Sometimes when he turned and caught it, his own heart seemed suddenly to stop its beat, at what it saw there. “Look at me!” he said laughing. “You have n’t ruinedme!”
The man looked at him—a long, slow, hopeless look. Then he shook his head. “It’s no use, John. I’m broken—! The road has used all of me—” He stopped suddenly, his gaze fixed on the floor.... A memory rang in his ear. The high Scotch voice thrilled through it. “They’ve not gi’e their strength to the road, as I have. The road’s had all o’ me.”
That night John visited Dr. Blake again.